Where Hope is Found (In Your Eyes)
by NefariousMoose
Summary: The eyes she knew so well were alight now, the eyes who saw her. They were alive and dancing with an excitement, a life she had witnessed only once before, light drawn from a well of hope dug deep from a withered soul. Rogue One AU!
1. Hope

Sure has been awhile since I've posted anything here. Technically I should be working on my other, larger fic (Ortus, you little bugger, damn you), but this wouldn't let go of my brain til it was put into words. So this is kind of a little AU spin-off, cause I'm mixed in with everyone else who wasn't completely satisfied with the ending of Rogue One. I mean it was fantastic, but Jyn and Cassian...! Anyhoo, this is an idea of what it would be like for them upon hearing the Death Star is really gone. And the whole idea is Jyn is a bit Force-sensitive. I personally feel the movie reinforces that idea over and over again, so I'm playing off of that a bit too.

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 **Where Hope is Found (In Your Eyes)**

It happens in a split second in between breaths, air stale and frozen somewhere between her lungs and mouth. Hands resting on wires and data chips and so much more, and then tightening, tightening, tightening-

K2 is speaking now. She can hear him mutely, like there's a thousand pounds of water separating her from the exasperated droid. Even the nuances of his otherwise emotionless voice have faded away.

In that single moment all Jyn Erso can feel is heat.

Death.

 _Hope._

Her hands drop away from the exposed panel, wires jutting out in a tangled web of color. K2 falls silent. Jyn blinks, turns. Her body is on autopilot, she feels. There's nothing now, just a vast emptiness settling in her chest close to her heart. It feels...light.

Across the crowded hangar she meets a familiar gaze. Brown eyes stare straight through her in a way that makes her shiver and smile in pleasure. The feeling in her chest expands, filling her with light, with hope.

The news spreads like a ripple through the entire base. Jyn could feel it as easily as a strengthening of wind across an empty plain. One moment the mundane and the next, the crackle and exhilaration of the news.

The eyes she knew so well were alight now, the eyes who saw her. Not the skinny adolescent with thieving hands and a tarnished name. Not the woman in chains for crimes upon crimes against a broken system. Not even the one who pushed for the impossible when everyone else backed down. These brown eyes, this gentle gaze which stripped her bare and saw her and knew her. They were alive and dancing with an excitement, a life she had witnessed only once before, light drawn from a well of hope dug deep from a withered soul.

They were together before either of their minds could register moving. Cheers and hollers around them, a base alive with _hope hope hope_. His hands are on her waist, on her back, hugging her tight to him. Her fingers are in his hair, her feet leaving the floor. And they are spinning, the room blurring around them in whirls of gray and black and orange.

And they are laughing.

In that moment, the feeling in her chest explodes. She feels breathless, weightless. She can't breathe, but Jyn Erso has never felt more at peace.

 _Yes, this is what we wanted._


	2. Guilt

Can you tell I'm absolute Rogue One trash at this point? Yeahhh... I can't seem to get over everything that happened and the amazing chemistry Felicity Jones and Diego Luna showed on screen with their characters *flails*

So this fic is probably going to turn into my dump space for all my ridiculous feelings and general fangirling over the nuances of Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor's complicated and beautiful relationship :D

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They're sitting alone, the last echo of existence fading away down a distant corridor, and still they do not move. Knees touching, fingers tangled together in a beautiful canvas of slender and calloused, strong and tan. Her thumb rubs across one of his knuckles and his grasp on her hand tightens. He takes a breath, a soft exhale. She feels something wet slide down her cheek, but neither moves.

Movement is not necessary. Words have lost all meaning. What else could there be for them, survivors who walked through fire and stared death in the eye and dared to _live_?

She breathes out slowly, the world again coming into focus. The roar of death and loss fades away the moment she looks at his eyes and she feels her carefully constructed wall keeping out emotion crumbling.

She's never seen anyone look so vulnerable before aside from her parents, her sweet mother and strong father. Even then there was always a barrier between them, she knew. Her parents were never completely open, never completely trusting.

Not like the man before her.

The openness he showed her, the trust, made her shiver. She saw emotions flicker across his eyes. Love. Peace. Grief. Hope. They were gone as instantly as they had come awash with other emotions she had no easy name for.

"Cassian-"

His grip on her hand tightens again, eyes watering and distorting the warm brown she knows. "Don't." His voice is hoarse, quiet. _Broken_.

The silence stretches again, their only anchor their hands joined together. She wonders if she'll ever be able to let go again. They've fought and they won and they fought and they lost. She wonders if the cost was too great. Will it ever be enough?

They're sitting alone, the echo of existence fading somewhere far off until there is nothing left except the space between them, the intimacy of shared breaths. Their heads lean toward each other, foreheads touching on instinct. There is nothing now except them.

They are alive.

They are alone.

...what was it all for?


	3. Trust

So, this is gonna be my last update on this story for this week. I'm going to Atlanta! :D :D :D

And I won't have time for writing until I get back... :( Maybe by the time I get back, I'll have more ideas!

This particular chapter is not an AU, I'm going back to the movie. *sigh* Nothing happy lasts forever, I guess. Maybe another time, hehe.

Enjoy!

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The metal is cool in her hand. She grips it harder until she feels her knuckles will crack, her fingers will break. She doesn't look away from him and he holds her gaze just as evenly.

They both know. He knows she didn't just "find" the blaster, and she knows that he knows.

Neither is willing to back down.

K2 makes a comment about their silent battle. Jyn feels the air around them crackling with the contest of wills, but she knows she's stronger. She can feel Cassian's presence like a weak flame, burning dimmer and dimmer with each passing moment.

"Trust goes both ways," she hears herself saying, her own voice a distant echo of her father's, something he used to say to her, to her mother. The thought of him almost catches her off guard, flooding her with unwanted, strong moment. She watches Cassian's face, something in his eyes flickers and changes. She shoves the emotion, the memory of _him_ far away where it can't bother her anymore. She pretends it never does. When Cassian looks away, Jyn lets herself enjoy a moment of triumph.

It is overshadowed by a niggling thought. _He will never trust you._

She tries to tell herself it doesn't matter. She doesn't need anyone.

Hours, days, weeks later, when Cassian grasps her hand, smiles at her, she feels the walls around her heart, around feelings she thought she had locked away long before, weaken and crack. The tangle of emotions is too much for her, but for the first time in a long time, Jyn isn't intimidated by them. She's not ready to embrace them yet, the mix of hurt and loneliness and abandonment she's faced day by agonizing day since that moment.

But when Cassian takes her hand, hugs her against him as the sky burns brighter and brighter and their mission is complete, Jyn lets the tangled mess go. She hugs him just as tight, her chin resting on the curve of his shoulder, fingers digging into the rough material of his shirt.

 _I trust you_ , she wants to say though her words would be drowned out in the rush and clamor of their death. _I trust you, Cassian Andor._

 _I love you._


End file.
